Did You Know?

Red Panda

Editor’s note: As Creation magazine has been continuously published since 1978, we
are publishing some of the articles from the archives for historical interest, such as this. For teaching and
sharing purposes, readers are advised to supplement these historic articles with more up-to-date ones available by searching creation.com.

The raccoon-like Red Panda is supposed to show us good proof of evolution. We are
told it is a meat-eater that no longer eats meat; it has razor-sharp claws
and a vicious bite that it rarely attacks with; and it has supposedly evolved
a small ‘sixth finger’ on its front paws from the wristbone.

How can we creationists answer this evidence for evolution? Simple. The panda
is classed as a meat-eater (carnivore) mainly by its jaws, teeth and feet.
And while pandas will eat some meat, they prefer bamboo, fruit and plants.
Yet we find there is no evidence their ancestors were anything but vegetarian
pandas. (In fact, zoologists still can’t agree after more than a century
on what pandas evolved from.) The Red Panda’s sharp claws and vicious
bite are not left over from a time when their ancestors attacked and defended
themselves from other animals. They have no enemies other than man. Their claws
simply help them climb trees easily. And their strong jaws and teeth are needed
to snap and crunch their huge daily meals of bamboo. The ‘sixth finger’,
or pseudo-thumb, is simply an enlarged radial sesamoid-a wristbone that helps
the panda grasp the bamboo stems it eats. This ‘thumb’ is larger
in the Giant Panda because it eats larger bamboo stems.

These traits don’t show us evolution. They show us that pandas are a
unique creation of God-perfectly adapted for the life God intended for them.